S. Awan is an independent journalist, culture lover and student of history, navigating the depths of various aspects of culture, politics, music, film, the controversial and the weird.
Also a musician, and part-time freelance, involuntary human being. Also occasionally lives on the moon. Also is a ghost. And a cigarette butt that hasn't been put out properly; so, you know, there's still, like, smoke coming out of it and stuff...

And so we’re dragged back to the Ken Livingstone ‘Anti Semitism’ scandal and the torches and pitchforks are back out.

Livingstone, who has been described as “the only truly successful left-wing British politician of modern times”, may have made a comment that was offensive to some: but it was essentially only a historical observation, and the witch-hunt that followed it spiraled out of all proportion and continues now to rumble on.

Livingstone’s statement (for which he has been so disproportionately hounded) that Hitler himself supported Zionism is essentially true if you take the definition of Zionism to be a support for the agenda of creating the Biblical Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Nazi party, during the time-frame Livingstone specifically referred to (several years prior to the outbreak of war), was essentially pro the Zionist agenda to have European Jews mass migrate to Palestine.

Making that observation isn’t anti-Semitic, it’s historical observation. Livingstone didn’t say Hitler liked Jews or Zionists – only that he at one point favored the Zionist ‘solution’ in as much as he favored the migration of European Jews out of Europe and into the Holy Land. The remark would’ve been closer to the truth if he had talked about the Nazis generally rather than Hitler specifically (as the evidence tends to suggest Hitler didn’t care about Palestine one way or the other and basically just wanted rid of Jews); but at no point did Livingstone question the realities of the Holocaust or suggest that Hitler didn’t also have a desire to mass murder European Jews.

The ridiculous thing, as I pointed out at the time thing whole circus erupted, is that Israel’s current Prime Minister – at around the same time – said something similar to Livingstone, but much more explicitly: and, of course, without provoking a peep of ‘Anti Semitism’ cries from anyone.

Addressing the World Zionist Congress, Benjamin Netanyahu had said – bizarrely (and falsely) – that Hitler had never wanted to exterminate Jews, but had simply wanted them to migrate to Palestine.

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Netanyahu’s statement is more inflammatory than Livingstone’s was – particularly as he is the Israeli Prime Minister and was making a written/prepared speech to the Zionist Congress: whereas Livingstone had been making an off-the-cuff remark while being cornered by press in the street.

It is also fascinating that this much coverage and scandal surrounds Livingstone’s comment (which, again, has some legitimate historic basis – even if it might also, understandably, be offensive to some ears), yet absolutely NO ONE in the media is bothered by Israeli nationalist settlers’ connections to Breitbart, Steve Bannon or Trump (see here), by Geert Wilders’ calls for “Zionism for Europe” or by published statements from Israeli journalists that “a worldview that supports white supremacy is good for Israel” (see the ‘Seeds of Fascism‘ post for more on that).

And yet Ken Livingstone, a long-serving British politician of high standing – who clearly isn’t a racist or an ‘anti-Semite’ and who has a number of Jewish Labour figures defending him and condemning the witch-hunt – is being bullied and hounded by the corporate press and the Israeli lobbies.

This deliberate propaganda policy of equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism – which is conducted by the Israeli government itself, along with various foreign governments and media under the sway of pro-Zionist influences – is ultimately doing a disservice to all Jewish people and is in fact aiding a rise in general anti-Semitism.

It is designed, as I’ve argued several times before, to suppress any or all questioning or criticism of the Israeli government or of international Zionism.

What is largely missing from the mainstream media narrative of this situation isthat many of the target ‘offenders’ in this ‘anti-Semitism crisis’ have been Jewish campaigners who happen to oppose extreme Israeli right-wing nationalism/Zionism. One of the earliest was Tony Greenstein, who has been an ardent activist against Holocaust denial and general anti-Semitism – but who also happens to support Palestinian rights. Greenstein wasn’t even told what the reason was for his suspension. Labour activists, many of them Jewish, have hinted that accusations of anti-Semitism are being used as a strategic weapon against Corbyn by the party’s right-wing.

Numerous left-wing Jewish activists were already complaining that anti-Semitism had become the “weapon of choice” against the left. Charley Allan, a Jewish Labour Party member, has described the current atmosphere in the press and the Labour Party as a “witch hunt.”

Influential author Johnathon Cook went further in this piece on the subject, suggesting that ‘Labour is one step away from book-burning’. He adds, ‘We have also reached a point where the only major British political party with even a pretence of opposing imperialism and colonialism is creating taboos around the very issues needed to understand the colonial past of Britain and Europe’.

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Why is this all happening?

The entire ‘anti-Semitism crisis’ is likely a plot aimed not only at Livingstone, but at the complete decimation of the left in British politics and the neutralisation of Jeremy Corbyn.

We might be wise to note that, earlier this year, the Labour Party (alone) called for an official inquiry into the Israeli embassy leakthat exposed the talk of ‘bringing down’ Alan Duncan and other British MPs who were thought to be unsympathetic to the right-wing government in Israel – a plot that Labour’s Emily Thornberry described as a matter of national security.

Said investigation has generally been buried and, like the entire controversy, largely ignored by most of the mainstream (largely pro-Israel) media.

The absolute best analysis of the present Israeli/Zionist lobby control of British politics – and how it relates absolutely to the plot against Corbyn – can be found here at Wall of Controversy; I highly recommend reading it in full.

Whether it related to this specific business or to something else, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonald said – on Ferbruary 26th in a briefing – that ‘WE HAVE TO ALERT PARTY MEMBERS and supporters that the soft coup is underway. It’s planned, co-ordinated and fully resourced. It is being perpetrated by an alliance between elements in the Labour Party and the Murdoch media empire, both intent on destroying Jeremy Corbyn…’

Some weeks ago, I posted a very long, detailed report concerning how the extremist-nationalist government in Israel appears to be trying to remove liberal, left-wing or moderate governments all over the West and replace them with Far-Right or ultra-nationalist parties (Bannon, Wilders, Le Pen, etc) that mirror the current Zio-nationalism in Israel and are generally committed to servicing the current Zionist agenda.

Undermining the current Labour Party would seem a natural part of that agenda; though, in truth, Jeremy Corbyn was always going to be up against it the moment he won the Labour leadership contest. As previously illustrated, even Corbyn’s predecessor Ed Miliband – a child of Jewish Holocaust survivors – was boycotted by Israeli groups in 2014 for daring to criticise the bombardment of Gaza.

What we are seeing – and will continue to see – is an ongoing operation to try to eliminate any semblance of genuine opposition in this country: along with a parallel operation across the Western world to remove or discredit any remaining opposition to Zionist activity.

Again, for the comprehensive explanation of what is currently happening in politics across the Western world and how it relates directly to the extremist government in Israel and the international Zionist movement, read the ‘Seeds of Fascism’ article from several weeks ago.

And for a comprehensive explanation of what is going on in Britain specifically, read Wall of Controversy’s article here.

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Ken Livingstone has apologised for causing any offense to anyone, but has also refused to apologise for saying what he said. He is sticking to his guns, not because he is an ‘anti-Semite’ but simply because he was making a historical observation – a historical observation that has been made before Livingstone by numerous people, primarily Jewish authors.

Also, a must-read 1993 piece by Mark Weber for The Journal of Historical Review also thoroughly corroborates the historical reality of Nazi/Zionist collaboration in regard to Palestine. ‘Early in 1935, a passenger ship bound for Haifa in Palestine left the German port of Bremerhaven,’ he writes, beginning the article. ‘Its stern bore the Hebrew letters for its name, “Tel Aviv,” while a swastika banner fluttered from the mast. And although the ship was Zionist-owned, its captain was a National Socialist Party member. Absurd or not, this is but one vignette from a little-known chapter of history: The wide-ranging collaboration between Zionism and Hitler’s Third Reich’.

Weber, who in 1988 had testified for five days in Toronto District Court as a respected ‘expert witness’ on Germany’s war-time Jewish policy and the Holocaust, proceeds in the article to lay out in entirely sober, historical terms, the substantial cooperation between international Zionists and Nazi Germany at the specific time that Livingstone was referring to.

After offering a comprehensive historic account, Weber concludes, ‘During the 1930s no nation did more to substantively further Jewish-Zionist goals than Hitler’s Germany’.

None of this is anti-Semitism. None of this is any kind of Holocaust denial or rewriting of history. It is simply an acknowledgement of the historical cooperation and links between international Zionists and Nazi Germany at that time.

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Thankyou for another thoroughly informative article, have shared it around.

Have been checking your blog today for something about the Stockholm thing today – even the Guardian was marking the occasion of reminding about Trump’s Sweden comments last month… so I’ll come back tomorrow when there may be something 🙂

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